Warner Bros., Intel Sues Maker of 4K Copy Protection Stripper

Source of high quality 4K streaming rips found, as major studio, tech company sues maker of HDCP stripper

Image/Photo Credit: HDFury

The mystery of where high quality 4K pirated rips of streaming content may have been solved thanks to information obtained about a lawsuit filed by Warner Bros. and Intel subsidiary Digital Copy Protection (DCP).

The major Hollywood Studio and DCP, the company that owns and controls the HDCP copy protection standard, sued a Chinese manufacturer of HDMI converters and HDCP strippers. The company, HDFury, recently released a device that is capable of stripping the most recent version of HDCP, version 2.2, which is used to protect 4K content from streaming platforms such as Netflix and Amazon.

The first of these devices shipped in early November, which was just days before the first pirated 4K content started appearing on file download and sharing sites. It was theorized at that time that a loophole existed within older HDMI devices capable of playing 4K content, which allowed Netflix and Amazon content to be ripped.

Warner Bros. and DCP allege HDFury violated the anti-circumvention provision of the DMCA and asks the court to bar the sale and promotion of the device in the United States. Both companies will be keen to prevent the HDFury device from being sold, not only to protect existing streaming content, but also to protect content released on the upcoming Ultra HD Blu-ray format, which also uses HDCP 2.2.